without iraq, harry reid and nancy pelosi may never rise to power and barack obama may still be in the senate and not the white house. president george w. bush's approval numbers hit 71% as the country rallies around the troops and a war sold as critical to protecting us and ending weapons of mass destruction. those numbers slip and down to 45%. by the spring of 06, it was down to 37%, roughly half what it was when the war began. it wasn't just the president who suffered what we saw, but the demise of the neoconservative world view. vice president cheney and rumsfeld in which the u.s. sought out enemies and used force to spread democracy. >> the establishment of a free iraq at the heart of the middle east will be a water shed event in the global democratic revolution. >> what americans saw was a bleed quagmyre that destroyed the credibility on those who promoted it and the republican party as a whole. it spikeed from 486 to more than 2100 by the end of 2005. in the mid-term opposition led to a crushing defeat for republican who is lost both the house and senate. any question that the w